


perfect places

by merteuils



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Fake Marriage, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Green Card Marriage, I Tried, Kinda?, M/M, Slow Burn, and PINING lots and lots and lots of pining, catch me riding that johndo wave til i die, i gotta water their tag, i mean theyre actually married just u know... for the greencard, oh my god they were roommates, ten is in this but hes like... johnnys tired best friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-18 20:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19342267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merteuils/pseuds/merteuils
Summary: Doyoung needs a green card, Johnny is his best friend. They get married and it's a lot more complicated than it needs to be.





	perfect places

**Author's Note:**

> for belle who yells abt johndo w me on a daily basis n bc i love her
> 
> i... did not proofread this but jlkdjss i'll do it when im not exhausted from writing so much

The smell of cinnamon wafts through the air and Johnny knows something’s wrong the moment he steps into their apartment. Doyoung is _baking_ which is never a good sign. 

(In their early days of university, Johnny once comes home to five trays of three different kinds of burnt cookies in their kitchen because Doyoung loses the role of Freshman representative to Taeyong. The cookies turn out unsurprisingly awful but eating them cheers Doyoung up enough to stop him from lying face down across their filthy carpet while blasting Taylor Swift songs on repeat. Johnny’s stomach still churns from the smell of snickerdoodles to this day and Doyoung still can’t bake cookies without burning them to a crisp.)

“Wow, it smells like a Cinnabon in here.” he comments, dropping his books with a loud thud against the counter. Doyoung snaps out of his trance and flashes him a small smile.

Johnny takes him in -- clothes stained with flour as he attempts to flatten a lump of dough with their broken rolling pin and his hair disheveled. It’s one of those days and Johnny braces for the impact, tries to calculate the million things he knows enough about Doyoung that might help cheer him up and not upset Johnny’s digestion in the process.

There’s a strain of co-dependence that comes with living with someone for four years. Johnny’s picked up Doyoung’s habits over the course of this time - the way his tones shift when he’s lying or frustrated over a particularly complicated writing assignment, how Doyoung wears this one ratty bright blue cardigan whenever he’s having a bad day, or how he gets touchy when he drinks at least two bottles of grape soju (because Doyoung can’t stomach the taste of any other flavour).

He likes to think he knows him well enough that curveballs at this point aren’t curveballs at all.

Except, Doyoung opens his mouth and Johnny’s thrown off guard. “I’m getting deported.”

Easy, quick. Apparently he doesn’t know Doyoung well enough to expect that.

It would be funny to say it’s out of character for Doyoung to let something like a visa remain forgotten but it isn’t either. Graduation has been rough and the months have stretched out long enough that Johnny’s certain Doyoung’s a little devastated expected employment hasn’t come by now. Everything’s kind of come to a standstill - days after shitty shifts at retail to keep them both afloat are gruesome if not discouraging. Doyoung spends his fews days off typing on his keyboard semi-aggressively in an attempt to write and Johnny tries his best not to lose his mind going through so many interviews in such a short span of time.

“What?” he asks as if he doesn’t hear it properly.

A smile, tight-lipped and annoyed. “Don’t make me say it again.”

“Just like that?”

“I thought I’d have a better job by now.” Doyoung supplies, he’s rolling the dough too thin and not really paying attention. Maybe it’s therapeutic. Johnny doesn’t try to intervene. “I have a few weeks.”

“We’ll figure something out.” he smiles, the other boy huffs and ignores him.

“ _I’ll_ figure something out.” is Doyoung’s curt response. Johnny shrugs.

The cinnamon rolls are thrown out, forgotten in the oven an hour too long. They have to call the fire station not to come when the smoke alarm goes off and Johnny orders take out in favour of dinner. Doyoung spends the rest of the evening wrapped in a blanket next to him on their couch, voice soft as he tries to seem unbothered by the prospect of leaving. Johnny’s rubs his fingers against Doyoung’s blue sweater - the same one he knows he brings out in the hour of “devastation” and pretends that maybe if he wishes for Doyoung not to leave, the sweater’s magic might make it come true.

(They meet in freshman year via a craigslist ad Johnny puts up. Doyoung comes in the mid-summer just as Johnny’s moving in and unpacking his things, dissatisfied with the state of the small apartment claiming it looked bigger in the photos.

He still moves in a week later, new things from Ikea and a shelf that he asks Johnny to build for him one night. It’s the first time Johnny learns of Doyoung’s distaste for non-grape soju and how his smile makes everything feel somehow lighter, it’s the first time Doyoung learns of Johnny’s penchant for blasting new wave music while he works and how his laughs gives him butterflies. )

It takes a week for the solution to come - clear after too many bottles of beer and the sound of Lorde blasting through the speakers of Ten and Taeyong’s apartment. Taeyong’s balancing plates in his hands and Ten dances in the middle of their living room and everyone’s a little buzzed. Johnny has papers to do, music sheets to write, a recital to practice for but he comes on Doyoung’s insistence because at this point, Doyoung asks and Johnny obliges. He loses him in the small crowd, probably to look for his designated bottles of soju. (Labeled **_“BIOLOGY SAMPLES DO NOT TOUCH”_ ** in red marker by Taeyong. It’s the only way people won’t drink them. They’re bought just for Doyoung after too many parties that have involved him complaining Ten and Taeyong’s ears off. 

Also because almost everyone agrees that Doyoung’s a little more tolerable when he’s had a little bit of alcohol in him.)

 It’s Doyoung who comes, flushed and red with his eyes sparkling as he takes Johnny’s hand in the crowd. Everything else fades.

“I need to tell you something,” he whispers in hushed tones but he's the only thing Johnny hears in the crowd. Johnny nods, pinkies lacing together as he gets pulled away from Jaehyun and what Jae probably assumes is a titillating conversation about homebrew.

In Taeyong’s mess of a room, Doyoung takes a seat on the edge of the bed and Johnny takes a sip of his beer. “So?”

“Will you marry me?” 

He drops his beer on Taeyong’s carpet, spills it all over some books and Doyoung gets flustered, dropping to his knees to clean the mess Johnny’s made. It paints a funnier picture in Johnny’s head and he’d make some joke about needing a ring if he isn’t so entirely puzzled by the question presented. “ _What_?”

“I… this was better thought through in my head. It’s just that I need a green card to stay…it’s the best option or else I’d have to leave for at least a year until it gets sorted and I know it’s stupid to ask you I just thought since we’re already living together it would be convenient for both of us and it’s just a few months and I wouldn’t even mind if you decide to sleep with anyone. But I need someone I’ve technically been seeing for two years and it’s selfish but I just thought maybe I’d ask.” he rambles, fussing about as he tries to find something to wipe the beer off. Johnny’s chuckling, kneeling down next to him. “You’re my best friend.”

 _Doyoung asks, Johnny obliges._  

“Okay.”

(Johnny takes him home for spring break in sophomore year. In his car back in Chicago, Doyoung rolls the windows down and feels the breeze as they drive through the streets at night. Johnny turns the music up, the sound of an indie song playing as they both take each other in. The familiarity of two things Johnny’s always known blending together, the newness of two things Doyoung still has to understand. “You had a whole life here.” Doyoung says matter of factly.

“I have a whole life back in university with you too.” he shrugs, Doyoung laughs as if he doesn’t believe Johnny.

His mother falls in love with Doyoung, sits with him in the living room while they go through Johnny’s childhood together and Doyoung pretends he doesn’t wish he hadn’t only been introduced as just Johnny’s best friend.

In Johnny’s bedroom, they fall asleep just before the sun rises and Johnny pretends he doesn’t understand what it means to feel his heart flutter at the sight of someone sleeping next to him.)

Only Doyoung would meticulously plan a wedding in Vegas.

He spends hours scouring through wedding chapel sites while nursing a hangover - perched on their sofa as Johnny hands him water refills in his favourite mug. (It’s a Judge Judy mug that is by far the only thing Johnny’s seen Doyoung buy impulsively.) He has lists of places they can afford, highlighted with bright yellow containing bullet points of whatever’s included in their packages. 

There’s a pros and cons list crumpled somewhere in the mess, one he and Johnny had gone through earlier that morning when Johnny had insisted that if they’re going to elope he at least wants something he can remember. (Backyard wedding ministered by Ten almost wins but Doyoungs counters it would mean they’d owe Ten something and he’d rather not be in debt to someone he knows would cash that in at the worst possible moment. Plus, no one has a backyard that doesn’t look like a garbage dump.)

“So Vegas.” Johnny suggests, Doyoung hesitates. “We deserve a road trip.” Not because he wants to drive again like in Chicago - where Doyoung had his head out and his eyes sparkled in wonder. (Okay, maybe because of that.) “You, me, Yuta, Jungwoo maybe.”

Doyoung considers. “Jungwoo would upstage both of us at our own wedding.”

“So Jaehyun?”

“Too pretty. I wanna look good in photos too.”

“What about Madame Tussauds?” Johnny says, throwing himself onto the sofa and moving Doyoung’s feet so they rest on his lap. “Elvis impersonator, wax figure witnesses. I mean, come on I’d want Keanu at my wedding.”

“Vetoed.” Doyoung replies, not looking up. He holds out his hand for his cup, Johnny hands him Judy. “We’d just argue about who the other wax figure would be.”

“Graceland?”

“You want Elvis to minister our wedding?”

Johnny laughs. “I mean, Real Elvis would be cool.” Doyoung’s brows knit into a frown. Johnny supposes this is better than having him bake another disaster. There’s something unspoken between them that Johnny can’t really pinpoint, a weight that he’s waiting to be lifted. He supposes saying yes to marrying your best friend for a green card entails some sort of awkwardness but it’s him and Doyoung. This is just putting a label on something established. 

Now that they’re both sobered up though, the whole thing feels more surreal and less like something either of them would do. 

Johnny, ever the romantic to get married in a little chapel in Vegas. 

Doyoung, ever the planner to wed someone seemingly on impulse.

But everyone’s often joked that Johnny’s the only one who could get Doyoung to try out new things, Doyoung’s always been the one good at surprising Johnny. Maybe in some weird way, it sort of makes sense.

“So I take it that’s a hard no on gold tuxes?” he asks, chuckling. Doyoung can only scoff. 

“I don’t think my parents would like that.”

“True but I think your brother would find it hilarious.” he grins then fishes something out of his pocket. “We need a ring, by the way.” He holds one out, silver and gleaming in the light of their living room. “Mom’s ring. You know it might be a little small but we can get it resized for you.”

The other boy looks up, closing his laptop slowly as he makes a pained expression. “Johnny, I couldn’t.” 

“I want you to.” So Doyoung doesn’t protest, only leans in to press a kiss against Johnny’s cheek. He rests his head on his lap, lets Johnny take his hand and slip it onto his finger. Johnny doesn’t think about how he’s been in love with Doyoung since that night in Chicago because maybe Doyoung thinks he’s being selfish for asking but perhaps Johnny’s even more selfish for accepting.

Later, they’re laughing in the kitchen as they rub butter along the band.  (“You forgot to put butter in the cinnamon rolls?” “Shut up, you should be glad I didn’t.”)

* * *

No one really questions it -- the rest of their friends just kind of accept that this has always been something inevitable. Ten’s the only one who asks, catches Johnny in a lie in the middle of dinner one night.

“This is so you.” he says to Johnny, head tilted with a smirk on his lips. He points a fork in his direction almost accusingly. 

Johnny acts unfazed. “What is? Vegas?” 

“Vegas? Not you. At all. You would _so_ be all over that whole dream wedding thing.” he shakes his head. “The Doyoung of it all. It’s so _you_.” Johnny could pretend he doesn’t get it, could act as though he hadn’t figured it all out but it’s hard to lie to Ten. 

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Just tell him.” Which isn’t really an option considering Johnny’s fully aware that Doyoung would rather get deported and eat cake batter with salt instead of sugar (which he _has_ done before) than discuss feelings, more so feelings that involve the words _love_ and _relationship_. Johnny shovels a spoonful of rice into his mouth so he doesn’t have to speak and Ten shoots him a knowing look.

(It’s winter, junior year, when Jaehyun asks him if Doyoung is single and Johnny feels heavy with discomfort. Like, throw up in a bush kind of discomfort. To which Johnny does because he’s drunk at that very moment and Jaehyun has no idea Johnny’s pretty much in love with his roommate.

“I don’t know, dude.” he answers just as Doyoung comes holding his designated drink, Taeyong’s angry red scrawl apparent on the bottle in the darkness.

“Doyoung, I was just asking Johnny about you.” Jaehyun says in that stupid charming voice Johnny knows he uses to get dates. The heaves again into the bush hoping the sound of him puking his guts out ruins their mood. “Are you single?”

Doyoung scoffs. “Why?”

So Jaehyun asks him out, Doyoung says yes, and Johnny throws up some more. A week later, Doyoung comes home complaining about Jaehyun’s lack of conversational topics outside of university subjects and makes Johnny promise not to make him sit through that again. They watch Netflix together that night, huddled together to keep away from the winter chill. Johnny wishes he could hold Doyoung hands, Doyoung wishes Johnny had been the one to ask him in the first place.)  


The drive to Vegas is a few hours. Jungwoo (who in the end insists he has to come with them despite Doyoung saying no) and Ten (who comes because Doyoung thinks Ten likes any opportunity to make things awkward) sit in the backseat, stuffed between flowers Doyoung picks because he and Johnny agree that roses provided in Vegas chapels are cliche and that if they’re going to elope they might as well splurge of some peonies like self-respecting members of the LGBT community. 

“I think it’s romantic.” Jungwoo says, clapping his hands together happily in the backseat.

“You think eloping in Vegas is romantic?” Ten asks, seated next to Jungwoo with his mouth full as he stuffs snacks into his mouth. “I mean no offense but I always thought you two would be the kind of people who’d spend at least a year planning a wedding.”

Johnny laughs, thinking of their wedding planning lockdown a week before. “We’re trying to be spontaneous.”

“Doyoung’s definition of spontaneous is more like buying two pairs of socks when he’d only planned to buy one.” Ten deadpans and Jungwoo laughs.

“I’m right here?” Johnny doesn’t have to look over to know Doyoung’s already frowning.

“Then you can confirm I’m right.”

“What can I say? Something about me makes Doie want to be spontaneous.”  A smile. Johnny squeezes Doyoung’s arm, catches the ring glisten in the light as the other boy pretends to roll his eyes. 

The jitters of a wedding that isn’t true comes and Johnny wonders if it will change anything, wonders if being married to Doyoung will mean something than just a ring. He doesn’t know what to hope for, just wishes it’s enough to make Doyoung stay with him a little while longer.

(It’s karaoke night, summer before senior year. Doyoung’s belting out a drunken rendition of Heaven is a Place on Earth on stage and somehow Johnny’s been pushed from the crowd to sing along. Ten and Jungwoo holler from the crowd, whistling as Doyoung takes Johnny’s hands and sways to the music with him. 

They come home later that night, stumbling into their apartment as they both hum along. Doyoung takes Johnny’s hands again and dances with him in the dim light of their living room.)

Heaven Is A Place On Earth plays as Doyoung, who only agrees to Belinda Carlisle on Johnny’s insistence, walks down the aisle. They’d managed to find a little chapel on the end of the strip that doesn’t happen to have an Elvis impersonator as the minister. Doyoung’s got his shoulders slumped but a smile on his features - his teeth flashing happily as Johnny shoots him finger guns and mouths the words to the song. He sings along too just as Johnny takes his hand at the altar.

Johnny can’t say this is how he’s pictured his wedding. Ten’s right to say it’s always been one of those things he’d spend too much time planning because at his core, Johnny’s a romantic. He’s always imagined a big garden wedding with all his friends and family, his mom beaming at him from the crowd and a single tear falling as he watches his groom walk down the aisle to a personal love song that they’d call their song.

Never in his life does he expect it to actually include a minister dressed like cupid standing behind him, half asleep as Doyoung lip syncs down the aisle to a bad pop song from before either of them were born. Yet he can’t imagine it happening any other way anymore, can’t help but be glad this is how it happens.

He sheds a tear still, more so because in a year he knows it’s fated to end.

Kissing Doyoung isn’t how he expects it to be. Johnny’s always imagined fireworks or maybe the first few notes of _True by Spandau Ballet_ to be playing in his head when it finally happens just the way he wants it to. Instead, it’s a fumbly kiss where their teeth kind of crash into each other in a weird quick and painful peck after they both say their “I do’s”.

“You promised it would all be painless.” Johnny laughs, covering his mouth with a hand. Doyoung grins at him, throws his bouquet of contraband peonies in the air for the benefit of literally just Jungwoo to catch.

“Thank you, Johnny.” he answers softly instead, leans in for a chaste kiss on Johnny’s cheek. So maybe there’s no ridiculous new wave song playing the background and maybe Johnny isn’t choking on Doyoung’s tongue as he feels fireworks surrounding him but it’s enough.

They throw a party in their apartment when they get back. Doyoung and Johnny spend an entire afternoon blowing balloons and hanging streamers, quiet and tired from the drive back and Ten’s incessant complaining about how Doyoung shouldn’t be allowed to pick the music just because he’s riding shotgun and Johnny’s dick now. (Even though he’s aware that isn’t the case, Johnny assumes he just likes being annoying.)

“So are we Mr. and Mr. Suh or Mr. and Mr. Kim now?” Johnny asks after an hour of silence.

Doyoung stops and considers. “I think we should hyphenate.” and then laughs, letting the air out of a half-blown balloon at Johnny’s face. 

“You’re tired.” 

“I wasn’t the one who had to drive everyone back.” 

“Nap time?” 

Johnny doesn’t like to think about how Doyoung fits so well into his arms because it gives him hope that maybe someday the other boy will realize just how perfect they’d be together. (In like a really non-creepy way.) They’ve already cuddled way too many times for the thought not to keep constantly crossing his mind. They’ve found space on their sofa and Doyoung has his head rested on Johnny’s chest as per usual. “Just thirty minutes.” he mutters, soft and sleepy before he falls asleep. Johnny presses a kiss against his forehead and runs his fingers through Doyoung’s hair before falling asleep as well.

There’s always the calm before a storm. It’s the last moment before things head south.

Jaehyun’s passed out on the sofa before midnight after getting scammed into doing soju bombs with Hyuck (who had apparently been pouring soda into his instead of alcohol) and Mark’s somehow managed to hijack their soundsystem. (Currently playing some remix of an obscure soundcloud rapper and a pop song? Johnny doesn’t know, doesn’t want to ask.) There’s some kind of tension between them after he wakes up - Doyoung avoids eye contact with Johnny all night, pretends to be distracted by other things when he comes close to his vicinity. 

Truthfully, Johnny isn’t sober enough for confrontation but he’s scouring the room for Doyoung searching for an answer. He fingers the silver band he’s wearing as if touching it would alert him of Doyoung’s place in the mess.

“Ready for battle?” Ten asks, suddenly popping out from nowhere. He’s got his arms crossed, brows knit as he smirks at Johnny. 

“Battle?” He’s too drunk to process this.

“You’re going to tell him you’re in love with him.” Ten isn’t his oldest friend for nothing. He raises an eyebrow. “You have that face on when you’re going to do something really stupid but you’re like, hellbent on doing it anyway.”

He slumps his shoulders, defeated. “This sucks.”

“Amen.” Ten hands him another drink and walks off before he says “Good luck, Johnny.”

Doyoung’s sitting alone in his bedroom, staring at the ring on his finger in the dark and Johnny can’t tell how much he’s had to drink. He looks up, smiling weakly at him as Johnny throws himself on to the bed. Johnny realizes it’s the first time in a long while since he’s actually been in there - tries to remember the last time but all he can remember now is having dinner on Doyoung’s floor in freshman year as he assembled his bed for him.

“I have something to say.” Johnny mumbles, arm over his eyes. He feels Doyoung pat his leg as if he’s trying to comfort him

“I’m sure it can wait in the morning.”

But Johnny doesn’t _want_ to wait until the morning. “Can you lie down next to me?”

“I’d rather not.” Curt, quick. He wonders if Doyoung is aware of his ability to drive knives deeper into someone without meaning to sometimes. “You’re very drunk, Johnny.”

“I like you.” 

Doyoung shakes his head and gets up. “You won’t remember this in the morning.” is all he says before leaving. Johnny remembers but pretends he doesn’t.

(Falling in love with Doyoung isn’t some grand realization or some big epiphany that Johnny goes through. It’s a little more like tiny puzzle pieces falling in place over the years and Johnny’s suddenly looking at the big picture and finding out it’s been Doyoung all along.

It’s gradual.

But Johnny can pinpoint the exact moment his heart swells in his chest at the thought of kissing Doyoung. It’s at the library and Johnny’s breathless from running all the way from their home to bring his roommate’s glasses to him and Doyoung’s waiting outside with his arms cross looking absolutely miffed. It’s when Johnny comes into his line of sight does Doyoung’s little smile come and Johnny’s certain the smile is more for the fact that Doyoung will be able to see again and less because Johnny’s there but at that very moment, he realizes, he’d probably do anything to be the one person who makes Doyoung smile each time.)

They have a cheap wedding portrait framed in their living room that comes with their wedding package. Doyoung spends an entire weekend compiling every possible question for their green card interview into separate binders and colour codes their answers. Over take out, they practice at the end of each day and for a while things seem to be okay again. 

“Okay, so my favourite colour is-”

“Blue because you once read it calms people down and psychologically makes someone seem more trustworthy. It's also the colour of your hideous sweater and mine’s-”

“A trick question. It’s currently coral because you saw it was the colour of the year _but_ it changes every so often depending on what you suddenly decide you like.” Doyoung states. He’s not wrong.

“You make me sound so….” Johnny tries to think of the word.

“Confusing?” Doyoung supplies quickly as if he’s thought it before.

“Indecisive would have been a better word.”

Doyoung hums, tapping a pencil against his lips as if his he’s lost in thought. “I find you very impulsive and in turn, it’s a wholly confusing aspect of you.” He sounds like he’s trying to pick his words carefully.

“What’s there to be confused about?” Johnny asks.

“I don’t know Johnny. Sometimes it’s one thing and then another so I can never tell.” Doyoung lets out an exhasperated sigh. “Can we move on?”

But he can’t. “What does that _mean_?”

This follow up makes Doyoung frown. Sometimes Johnny thinks Doyoung is never really aware of how his facial expressions are so easy to read, as if Doyoung is really just incapable of acting like a decent human being sometimes. “I just said what it meant. Can we please move on?”

“You think I’m flaky.”

“I didn’t say that.” His tone is sharp.

“But that’s what you meant?”

“I meant sometimes, Johnny, it’s not just your preference in colours that’s affected by your indeterminate personality.” He takes his binder and gets up. “Let’s just pick this up tomorrow. Goodnight.”

Johnny’s lies down on the floor for the rest of the night and tries to make sense of what Doyoung meant. In the morning, he wakes with Doyoung’s blanket draped over him and a note telling him there’s coffee in the pot. The conversation doesn’t come again.

* * *

 

Ten’s feet are dangling at the edge of their sofa - heeled boots still on because he insists he has to at least be 5’9” at all times. He’s holding up the wedding photo, fingers tracing the lines of Johnny and Doyoung’s silhouttes. Johnny takes a set next to him, Ten moving to rest his head on Johnny’s lap.

“Do you believe in the butterfly effect?” Ten asks, not really looking at him.

“That’s a movie right?”

Ten huffs. “No, like when a little thing changes your entire life. You know, like if you choose a blue shirt instead of pink.”

“Yeah, so?” Johnny shrugs.

“I was supposed to be your roommate.” 

Johnny doesn’t know what to say to this, how to respond to the possibility of things going a different way. It’s strange to think of a now without Doyoung, strange to imagine what it would have been like to have Ten. For one, he thinks, he wouldn’t be married now and maybe Doyoung would have been deported by now.

They’re quiet for a while. Ten hums the tune to a song Johnny isn’t familiar with before finally, “Anyway, I saw it on an episode of Lizzie Mcguire.” he finally says. “It’s something to think about.”

“Do you think I have an ‘indeterminate personality’?”

A laugh escapes Ten’s lips - soft and certain. “You do.” he nods, eyes darting up at Johnny. “But I think it makes you charming.”

He wonders what it’s like to have fallen in love with Ten - the ease that comes with Ten’s mouthy personality, never leaving him with any wonder of what he’s thinking. Doyoung is a puzzle that Johnny can never solve, even with his ridiculous non-skill of not being able to control his facial expressions Johnny thinks he’ll never really understand him even when he thinks he does.

The door slams shut and Doyoung walks in, sparing the two of them a glance before he walks into his room without so much as a greeting. 

“Someone had a bad day.” Ten grimaces, getting up and pressing his lips against Johnny’s cheek. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Simple, easy. “Love you!” Johnny calls out just as Ten’s about to close the door.

“Love you back, dumbass.”

He makes his way towards Doyoung’s room, knocks twice before he’s yelled at to go away. Doyoung doesn’t meet him for their nightly binder recaps that night.

* * *

 

Jaehyun throws a Halloween party on a Saturday night and Johnny manages to get Doyoung to dress up in a couple costume with him. (They agree on Cameron and Ferris Beuller after an hour long debate on who goes as who. In the end, they toss a coin and Johnny gets to be Ferris.)

Expectedly, Jaehyun doesn’t get the soju flavour memo so Johnny’s driving around the city with Doyoung looking for a korean mart that sells the inconveniently specific flavour that only his faux husband likes. At this point, Johnny’s just convinced Doyoung blatantly refuses to drink tonight because he doesn’t want to be there but Johnny is nothing if not persistent.

“We can always just not go back.” Doyoung says.

He’s not wrong. Admittedly, he’s aware they won’t be missed but the party is the first normal thing between them in a while. Between the nights awkwardly spent eating dinner across each other and Doyoung just not coming out of his bedroom at all, all Johnny wants at this point is to get drunk and get things back to before. He isn’t sure if he’s done anything wrong, isn’t sure if he’s made it weird for Doyoung after the drunken confession. (He supposes it’s that, just doesn’t like considering that as a possibility.)

He stops the car in front of a 7-eleven. “Are we okay?” Johnny’s sick of pretending.

“What?”

“I said are we okay?”

Doyoung’s frowning again and Johnny desperately wants him to smile again, wants to hear the laugh he’s heard on a daily basis ever since freshman year. It’s been absent since the wedding - lost in the bickering and tension. He doesn’t understand how it’s possible to miss someone sitting right across him.

Doyoung leans in closer, breath on Johnny’s lips. Doyoung smells like shampoo and mints. (At the back of Johnny’s head, he wonders if he does because he’d been planning to take someone who wasn’t Johnny home.) It’s close - closer than anything they’d ever been before and Doyoung’s eyes are on Johnny’s lips and if he leaned just a little more closer -

“I want to go home.” he says before sitting back. 

“Doyoung,”

“I want to go home.” his tone is sharp.

Johnny grips the steering tight but he doesn’t start the car. “You can’t just do that.” he finally says. “You can’t just dismiss me everytime a topic you’re uncomfortable with comes up. We’re either okay or we’re not because it seems like the answer is the latter and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why.”

Their eyes meet for the first time in week and Johnny feels his stomach still flutter. Doyoung opens his mouth to speak but closes it before opening the door. “It doesn’t matter, Johnny.”

But it does. Johnny unbuckles his seatbelt and follows lead, walking towards Doyoung quickly before he can walk away. “Doyoung.” his voice is tight. “I meant it.” That night in Doyoung’s bedroom, those three words. 

“And I meant it when I said it doesn’t matter.”

“No,” Johnny sighs. “You can’t do that.”

“Don’t, Johnny.” There is finality in his voice. “I’ll find another way home.”

He wonders if things would be different had he chased after Doyoung, had he said those words again now that both of them are sober but Johnny’s frozen from where he’s left. Almost as if he’s stuck watching Doyoung walk away, scared that if he says anything else he’ll lose him for good.

Doyoung doesn’t come home.

Not for a week. Johnny’s frantically calling all their friends for answers, leaving voice messages to Doyoung who doesn’t even bother to leave him on read.

**Doyoung**

hi johnny! it’s doyoung’s brother!!! i don’t know what happened and i dont want to pry but doyoung’s been staying with me all week so dont worry!!

It dawns on Johnny that he’s never been on the receiving end of Doyoung’s need for space. He recalls nights after Doyoung gets his heart broken by Yuta in Junior year where he runs off with his brother, thinks of the week he had turned off his phone to stay at home with Johnny after it doesn’t work out with Taeil. Johnny feels sick knowing he’s somehow hurt Doyoung that way, can’t stop pacing their living room until he finally calls Ten.

It’s Taeyong who picks up, mumbling a sleepy “Hello?” as he picks up.

“Taeyong?”

“Johnny?”

“Did I call the right person?”

Taeyong laughs on the other end. “Ten’s sleeping and he has Super Bass as his ringtone and it drives me crazy every time I have to sit through it.” he says. “Uh… do you want me to wake him up?”

“No, it’s fine.” he sighs. “I found Doyoung is all.”

“Oh?”

“His brother texted.”

Taeyong’s quiet for a moment. “Oh.” he finally says. “That bad, huh?”

“Yeah.” is all Johnny can say.

(It’s sometime in sophomore year when Doyoung disappears and leaves Johnny a note on his door. No fuss at all, so quick and to the point in his practiced handwriting. 

_Need to process things, see you Monday._

Which Johnny learns is Doyoung’s code complaining to his brother for an entire week while he drowns his sorrows under Top 40 hits from the early 2000’s. It drives Gongmyung crazy but he says it’s what Doyoung needs sometimes. It gets better over the years, Doyoung goes less and less and does it instead in the comfort of their apartment. Johnny watches from the sofa as Doyoung paces and eventually lies down on the floor, back straight, eyes closed as he sings along to Britney songs.)

Doyoung comes home on a Saturday, an entire week after he disappears. 

He wakes Johnny with a nudge, asleep on the sofa whilst National Geographic plays on the TV. It’s a strange feeling to be glad to see the ratty blue cardigan in his line of sight again, Johnny smiles and flashes Doyoung a sleepy smile. “You’re back.” he says.

Doyoung nods, takes a seat next to him. He fiddles with the hem of his cardigan nervously as if he wants to say something. “I’m sorry.” he finally says, eyes meeting Johnny’s in the darkness. “I haven’t been your best friend in a while.”

If Johnny wanted to be honest, he’d tell Doyoung he doesn’t want him to just be his best friend, he’d tell him how much he actually wants Doyoung to be more than that but Johnny’s tired and scared and a mix of so many emotions at that moment. He isn’t even sure if he’s dreaming this entire thing. “It’s okay.” he answers, holding his arms out.

Doyoung falls asleep in his arms. Things are better for a while.

* * *

 

Christmas is spent in Chicago on the insistence of Johnny’s mom. They send Christmas cards to Doyoung’s parts in Korea, taken about twenty times in their living room whilst wearing matching sweaters. Doyoung’s mother calls to tell Johnny how handsome he is and Johnny laughs as Doyoung flushes bright red when she tells him how lucky he is.

In Johnny’s suburb, then drive until it gets darker. Doyoung takes photos of the sunset, asks Johnny questions as they pass by different landmarks of his childhood. 

“How did you not already ask me this before?” Johnny says, hand on the steering while. It’s seven in the evening and they’re driving along his old high school. Doyoung has his head out again, hair flying wildly in the wind. He isn’t paying attention anymore but he sits back again, smiling at Johnny.

“I wanna know.”

Johnny doesn’t remember his first kiss.

Ten likes to tease him about his bad taste in exes because it’s a seemingly long list of girls who wore Lip Smackers and band shirts. Maybe that's why he’s sort of done his best to forget. Anyway, he’s always been a man of the now’s rather than the befores. He tries to pick his brain for an answer and instead imagines what it would be like to kiss Doyoung again.

“You’re blushing.” Doyoung says. “Was it nasty?”

He opens his mouth and laughs. “Maybe. I don’t want to kiss and tell.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes but leaves it. He’s staring at Johnny, smiling as he looks over at him for a moment. Johnny swears he could feel the world stop for a second. “You’re quite handsome, Johnny.” 

Johnny scoffs, Doyoung sticks his head out the window again. He turns the music up and hopes Doyoung can’t  hear how loud his heart is beating in his chest.

* * *

Their apartment smells like vanilla on Johnny’s birthday.

He wakes in an almost panic at the scent, darting out from bed just in his boxers as he rushes to the kitchen to find out what’s wrong. Doyoung’s in the middle of a mess of flour and sugar and Johnny’s trying to approach carefully.

“Hey,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“I’m trying to make you a cake.” Doyoung says, not looking up from the recipe he’s got open on his laptop. (Also covered in flour. There’s a speck of batter on the screen too.) “Oh! Happy birthday, Johnny.” he smiles, realizing who he’s talking to. He presses a kiss against Johnny’s cheek and Johnny decides it’s way too early to feel disgustingly elated.

“You don’t bake unless something’s wrong.” Johnny says cautiously, he hovers and pours a cup of milk into Doyoung’s dry batter that’s currently in the mixer. He dips a finger to taste and Doyoung swats his hand away.

“Well, maybe I want to change that.” He frowns. “Now, please, leave so I can bake in peace.”

“Exiled from my own home? On my birthday?” Johnny dramatically places an arm over his eyes and tilts his head back. “I will remember this Mr. Kim-Suh Doyoung.”

Doyoung sticks his tongue out and chuckles.

In the end, Doyoung manages to come up with an ugly crumbly vanilla cake that he decorates with coral coloured icing. He’s got a lopsided “ _Happy Birth_ ” written in white icing across it and flushes pink when Johnny comments on it. Guess Doyoung isn’t good at everything which is really, a comfort to Johnny.

“I love you, you know?” Johnny says. He means it. 

“You too.” Doyoung replies quickly, looking away.

Johnny pretends not to notice.

* * *

 

It’s midnight when he comes home to Doyoung playing music alone in the living room. It doesn’t take him long to realize he’s a little tipsy - bottles of soju on the coffee table and the sounds of new wave blasting from their speakers as Doyoung sways. “Rough day?” Johnny says out loud, snapping Doyoung out of his trance. 

His mouth curls into a smile as he takes Johnny’s hand and spins him. “I got a job.” he answers. “The pay sucks but… I get to write. It’s a _real_ job.” Doyoung’s eyes are sparkling and Johnny feels warm.

“Hey!” Johnny exclaims, wrapping his arms around Doyoung’s waist as he sways along. “That’s great, I’m proud of you.”

“Yeah.” Doyoung smiles, teeth out, eyes sleepy.

It feels a little anticlimactic how it happens but Johnny supposes there’s something so mundane but so _right_ with how Doyoung leans in just as something slow plays in the background. So he kisses him then, lips soft and gentle unlike their kiss in Vegas. This is unrushed, this is Johnny pouring out years of his feelings into Doyoung, this is Doyoung searching for answers on Johnny’s lips. Doyoung tugs at Johnny’s shirt, pulling him closer and Johnny’s holding him as if it’s possible to even be closer than they already are. 

Kissing Doyoung feels like coming home to something - like burnt cinnamon rolls and grape soju and things Johnny’s always known. It’s the safest thing he’s known, the _only_ thing he’s known and Johnny realizes that sometimes romance isn’t always grand gestures and pre-planning. 

Romance is marrying your best friend for a green card and kissing him in the light of your living room.

* * *

 

They spend their first anniversary talking about divorce papers.

Doyoung’s got his blue sweater on, pushing his glasses up as he reads through some law website they’d found that didn’t seem _too_ shady. On their dining table sits a half eaten cake, previously decorated with Doyoung’s now capable hands ( _Please don’t leave me_ in bright blue icing that Johnny can’t help but laugh at when it’s presented to him, 12 lit candles for every month of their marriage illuminating his- _their_ \- bedroom.)

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Doyoung asks, eyebrow raised as he looks up at Johnny. 

“Yeah.” he nods.

Doyoung’s green card is set to come in the next month and Johnny nervously fingers the ring he’s had for about a year. It’s strange to be excited for the prospect of divorce but they agree that starting over would be good for them.

He wants to get it right this time.

“Johnny if you propose to me the moment our first marriage gets invalidated I’m going to kill you.”

“What?” he laughs. “You beat me to it the first time!”

His husband shakes his head and leans closer from across the table where he’s sitting. “Can you please give me a kiss before I call this lawyer about leaving you?”

Doyoung asks, Johnny obliges.

**Author's Note:**

> hello i also have a nick and norah johndo sns au on twitter u can check that out [here](https://twitter.com/180422doyoung/status/1138811374442754048)!!!!
> 
> thank u for reading i hope more ppl write johndo fics hehe


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